With feast or famine water, who feasts and who starves?

[TimMurphy]

Dear Board,

I'm curious as to how all of you see the results of the last 6 weeks playing out over time?

I am of the opinion that ample water is good, but here in SC PA we've had more than enough water to share and still not miss anything.

In my mind, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that this season of big water and flash flooding hit when the young fish should have been first getting their bearings, and may turn out to be bad?

How do you think it will all play out down the road?

Regards,

Tim Murphy

 

[TJones]

JMO (and I might be totally wrong) I think all this water may not be great for this year’s spawn class, but for overall health of the fish and ecosystem I think it’s a good thing. This also goes for warm water species also like Smallmouth... what crazy summer nonetheless! Just my take on it.

 

[troutbert]

I think trout populations in general will go up. In the past hot, dry summers have knocked populations down, and they've recovered in summers with a lot of rain.

Regarding river smallmouth, I have less experience. But in the hot dry summer of 2005, the bacterial infection hit, and IMHO was triggered by the hot, low flow conditions, and the populations suffered badly. And have recovered due to more and cooler flows through the summers.

 

[bigslackwater]

My favorite trout streams locally are marginal waters that usually are a trickle with soaring temps this time of year. The flows have been great and I dont think my creek has broken 70 degrees yet (or will at this point). I still gave it the summer break but i fished well in to the end of June and early July for the first time ever. The spring creeks I fish have great flows too. last summer, some of these creeks looked and fished terrible. Fishing conditions are definitely better, but I'm not sure what this means for trout in the long run. Will this lead to an early spawn year for wild browns? I wonder if we have two weeks of no rain, if it could all go away and we'd see the low flow fall season we always see. I'm hoping the rain continues but just stays steady. no more blowouts.

 

[wildtrout2]

Well, most of the freestone streams are in incredible shape for mid summer, and fishing well. Probably the best summer flows I've seen. Only time will tell if there are going to be any ill effects from the heavy rains.

 

[Dave_W]

It will probably be a poor year for survival of river smallmouth young of the year (YOY).

Bass YOY success correlates with low and stable river flows during the period from late April through June. In years when there is low and stable conditions in the spring followed by flooding in May-June, YOY outcomes are usually poor.

This year - of course - has been highly unusual. One small, possible bright spot for river bass is the fact that river levels were fairly high in the spring but were also fairly stable. The big flood events occurred in late July through the present. If the storms had hit a month earlier, I think the damage would have been worse. This aside, however, I am still pessimistic about river bass YOY this year.

Will have to wait to see the YOY data when it becomes available to get a better grip on this... assuming the PFBC ever even manages to do their annual river surveys.

 

[Mike]

All of the fish that I am seeing, including fingerlings, are fat, healthy, and growing well. Eight to ten inch trout are very heavy for their lengths. The garden hackle diet is serving them well.

YOY SMB:
Lower Delaware: below average, but very good in some locations
Schuylkill: poor except for CrossKeys, River Rd, and Fritz Island, all surrounding Resding. Bridgeport: fair
Lower Susquehanna, Conestoga, Pequea Ck: could not sample. High water hit just as those two days of surveys were about to start in the 20's of July.

 

[afishinado]

Dave_W wrote:
It will probably be a poor year for survival of river smallmouth young of the year (YOY).

Bass YOY success correlates with low and stable river flows during the period from late April through June. In years when there is low and stable conditions in the spring followed by flooding in May-June, YOY outcomes are usually poor.

This year - of course - has been highly unusual. One small, possible bright spot for river bass is the fact that river levels were fairly high in the spring but were also fairly stable. The big flood events occurred in late July through the present. If the storms had hit a month earlier, I think the damage would have been worse. This aside, however, I am still pessimistic about river bass YOY this year.

Will have to wait to see the YOY data when it becomes available to get a better grip on this... assuming the PFBC ever even manages to do their annual river surveys.

I agree with Dave, the SMB spawn and YOY may take a hit this season.

Also, anyone that fishes the rivers by boat or wading is pretty much out of business until the water recede and clears. It's been mentioned the Susky water clarity has been murky if not downright muddy pretty much all year.

The trout should fare well with all the water this year to carry through the hot season, but record rainfall and flooding is really not good for anyone.

To add insult to injury, nearly every weekend has been hot, humid and rainy all summer.

Hopefully we will have a decent early fall to balance things out.

 

[CRB]

May be a good steelhead year also LE is cooler than most years and water table is up on the south shore.

 

[Canoetripper]

I am not a biologist and don't know what happens to young trout in these rare August high water levels.

As a canoeist, I have always said that I would rather have the water levels too high to fish than too low to canoe.

There is nothing worse than making a long drive to canoe an anticipated stretch of water only to spend the weekend dragging my canoe over exposed rocks.

 

[jifigz]

Yesterday the Juniata was actually in pretty good shape here and I got into some decent fishing. Today, although it came up a bit and was a little muddier, I also found some decent fishing for a bit and then it shut off. From some of the size smallies that I was catching there was definitely some spawning success here but may not have super high numbers. But things are looking good coming up.

As an aside: pretty good shape is relative to this year, but the fishing could at least be done with success.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear jifigz,

I'm glad you met with success. I took a look at the Fort Hunter ramp on the Susquehanna today. I wouldn't have dared to wade from the upper parking lot to the normal river bank unless a buddy was watching and I had fresh clothes and beer to come back to!

One way or another, I know the fish will survive. I'm sure numbers wise this water bounty has increased the fish count on many smaller more northerly trout streams. But at the same time locally I wonder what it has done to the insect and other aquatic life?

I have no answers and will admit that all we can do is wait and see?

Regards,

Tim Murphy

 

[jifigz]

This prolonged and sustained high water may also help to flush a lot of sedimentation downstream and actually improve many of our trout streams and bass rivers. What maybe good for the rivers will however be bad for the Chesapeake.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Tim flood events that cause alot of bed loading, and increased deposition have been found to have a significant impact on the macroinvertebrate life in some streams. Typically populations rebound in a few years, but in the case of extreme scouring events or significant flooding events in consecutive years the damage can be more long term.

I have been feisting on the wild trout streams in ncpa. The fishing has been fantastic in most cases. That said I have yet to explore some of the streams that got hit very hard last week with flooding. Some of the systems are very unstable with a lot of glacial till and legacy impacts from logging. I am expecting some major channel changes in the fishing creek, upper Loyalsock and upper muncy creek watersheds.